So, you're running down the street or down the hall, with the pursuer(s) hot on your heels. How to get out of this sticky situation?

Why, run into an alley or street to the side, of course!

Rest assured that your pursuer(s) will blindly dash past you - apparently, [[NoPeripheralVision their peripheral vision is conveniently deactivated]] as they approach your hideout. This will happen even if they should be capable of seeing you entering the hideout.

See also BehindTheBlack.

[[IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused]] with characters being pursued down an actual "blind alley", only to find themselves up against a ChainLinkFence or other dead-end.

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!!Examples

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]* ''Manga/VenusWars'' has Hiro Seno escaping from the police after his bike is shot at and explodes, but he dives into a doorway to a side alley. The police proceed forward to the explosion, believing he has died in the fire.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]* Averted in ''Film/{{Inception}}''. Cobb runs down an alley to try and ditch several agents that are chasing him. They notice him stuck in between the two buildings at the other end of the narrowing alley and he barely escapes them.* Occurred in the mock buster ''Mega Piranha''.* Seen in one of the short films made for ''Film/TwentyEightWeeksLater''. A man is pressed up against a wall as the Rage virus infected run past the alley -- presumably, their blinding anger prevents them from doing common sense things like looking around for someone who's gone out of sight.* ''Film/EscapeFromSobibor''. One of the guards goes into a senior officer's office [[spoiler:and discovers him by spotting blood and following its trail, marking the turning point of the escape when they had previously gotten along without widespread discovery.]]* In ''[[Film/{{Underworld1927}} Underworld (1927)]]'', Rolls Royce shakes off the police following him by hiding in a doorway.* An important plot device in ''Film/TheNeverendingStory'', where Bastian escapes his bullies by hiding in a bookstore, while his chasers rush by. The following encounter with the bookstore owner sets off the story.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]* ''Literature/TimeMachineSeries''. In the ''Blade of the Guillotine'', it's used to escape an angry royalist blacksmith.* ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth'' by Creator/HPLovecraft has a variation of this trope. The protagonist is fleeing the eponymous TownWithADarkSecret and hears his pursuers approaching, so he jumps into a ditch. The huge search party just passes him by, even after he [[GoMadFromTheRevelation faints from horror]] at the sight of them.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]%% The following {{Zero Context Example}}s have been commented out and moved to Discussion. Please don't uncomment them unless you add enough information to explain how they fit the trope.%% * ''Series/AlarmFurCobra11''* Happens in an episode of ''Series/{{Friends}}'', "The One in Barbados, Part 2". Ross and Charlie enter a room down the corridor while their pursuers continue down the hall.

[[AC:VideoGames]]* A game mechanic in the ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' series. Get out of the guards' line of sight, jump into a convenient well or haystack, and wait for the guards to [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy lose interest]].

[[AC: WebOriginal]]* In the second episode of ''WebAnimation/ThereSheIs'', the cat is trying to deliver the cake to his bunny girlfriend and hides in an alley from the rhino, dog, and other animals chasing him.* PlayedForLaughs in ''WebVideo/TheHire: Star'', where an incredibly abusive singer's driver decides to have some fun at her expense, leading her bodyguards (trying to catch up in an SUV) in a high speed chase through a city, at one point backing into an alleyway to see if they'd "lost them". The guards drive past, and he proceeds to tear out of the alley, pull up along side them, [[IShallTauntYou wink at them]], and then take off again.

[[AC: WesternAnimation]]%% The following {{Zero Context Example}}s have been commented out and moved to Discussion. Please don't uncomment them unless you add enough information to explain how they fit the trope.%% * All the time in ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry''.* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode [[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE25TheClockKing "The Clock King"]], Batman enters one next to the Gotham Traffic Department, so no one will see him getting out of Bruce Wayne's limo.